See, to us mere mortals that might have helped if the data structures/code was actually readable to us. It doesn't help me to have all that information available when it's in a format that would make me want to go postal.
I categorically REFUSE to use a language that looks like somebody barfed up a dinner sized portion of parenthesises all over the screen, no matter how many paradigms's it supports in an "easier-to-learn/easier-to-read" way... I get a headache just from looking at scheme and lisp code, and I suspect I'm not the only one.
Microsoft could do that today if they wanted to, but they know perfectly well that a judge would look VERY unkindly on a large corporate suing people without a shred of evidence to maintain their monopoly, and they know perfectly well that suing any of these people would cause legal funds to be up the same day to pay for their defences.
As long as the Samba people are careful to document the development process of any new features they would be in the clear.
First of all, you can't patent API's. Secondly the way CIFS works has been open and well documented way too long for MS to be able to patent it anywhere (typically the requirement is that a patent must be filed no later than a year after the publication of an invention).
How is "pracising unfair business practices" that have resulted in anti-trust convictions because they have illegally overcharged people for billions better than being a common thief? If it's slander against anyone to call Microsoft thieves, it would be against thieves, not Microsoft.
Your example is pure bullshit. A more direct analogy would be if a TV manufacturer that has a monopoly gets sued because their TV's are a fully usable standalone product (it does have a full set of buttons) and there is a real market for TV's without remotes, but the TV manufacturer refuses to sell TV's without their remotes.
The TV manufacturer then gets a judgement saying they need to offer to sell their TV's to distributors without the remote if they want to, and may have to deduct the cost of the remote ($3 in your example). The consumers gets the choice of buying the TV with or without the original remote, and possibly bundled with the universal remote from the other company.
The consumer gets choice, and the TV manufacturer is unable to force it's remotes on everybody in the hope of bankrupting the universal remote manufacturer so that they can enter the universal remote market without competition.
That's my take as well. In addition, they will benefit from having more Microsoft alternatives available even if they are closed source, as any additional implementation means added pressure for Microsoft to stick to the specs (or anyone depending on the API documentation they've paid for will go whining to the court complaining that Microsoft are violating the judgement), and more software to test Samba and other open source projects against.
Your logic falls apart in the first line: There is nothing fundamentally stopping us from manufacturing spacecraft elsewhere. There is a practical problem: We do not have infrastructure to do so elsewhere.
However that only means that bootstrapping a colony on a new planet will be extraordinarily expensive with our current technology, not that it isn't doable.
And speculative engineers everywhere are going far beyond doodling designs on napkins - they are spending a lot of time DESIGNING solutions to these problems.
Uhm. It wouldn't have been hard to find someone to debate heatedly with. In Norway, Life of Brian was initially banned from cinemas under a rarely used paragraphy in Norwegian law banning blasphemy. I believe it was the last time the paragraph (which still stands, btw.) has been used.
Of course IBM didn't "release a machine based on open specifications and parts with a straight face". At first they fought tooth and nail to keep control over the PC market and keep clone makers out of it. It was first AFTER the clones were already available, thanks to massive amounts of reverse engineering, that IBM started seeing the light. Remember the PS/2? IBM's attempt to regain control of the PC market by shutting competitors out. Unfortunately for IBM, customers preferred choice.
Fast non-volatile RAM has been "well under way and within reach in the next several years" for decades...
But even then you would sometimes want to reboot to reinitialize everything from scratch, for instance after a full OS upgrade.
Exactly what is PG-13 content? Do we follow the US idea of what should be allowed? European? Fundamentalist muslims?
That's why the last time this came up the result was ".kids.us" - even within the US it will be hard enough to find a consensus of what is acceptable contents for children.
As someone else has pointed out, diamonds are popular only because of De Beers advertising.
Before De Beers, the diamond was considered an inferior gemstone, not particularly attractive, and certainly not something people would generally consider for an engagement ring. De Beers built the "tradition" of the diamon engagement ring from scratch, manipulating the image of various sized stones various ways to optimize their sales channel, as well as using a lot of complex processes including buy backs and sales through dedicated dealers to create the impression of a high valued product.
Try selling a diamond ring back to a jeweller, and see what price they offer - the original jeweller may possibly be willing to give you a reasonable amount as an act of good faith, but in most cases you will find that the price you will be offered will be ridiculous, because the markups the jewellers get from De Beers and their distributors is insane. This is the reason most people see diamonds as precious: They are expensive in wholesale, because of De Beers. Not because they are rare, or supply is limited.
What the artificial diamond makers needs to do is recognize and capitalize on it: "Buy a diamond as pure as your love; flawless," making a big point of how with natural diamonds you are often buying an impure, flawed diamond, and also make a fuss over how the diamond trade has been used to fund many bloody wars.
And also make a big point of how diamonds aren't rare anymore, so you need "something special" for it to mean anything, not just any stone.
If MS stopped selling to Europe, Linux would overnight have gained the marketing muscle of all the PC distributors combined, simply because none of them would have much alternative. Apple don't stand a chance as long as their hardware is massively overpriced, and people have tons of investments in x86 hardware.
It would hit MS harder, because any work spent on making Linux suitable as a Windows replacement in Europe would be possible to move straight to the US as a cost cutting move by PC makers.
And that would harm EU customers how? Microsoft customers have been fighting hard to get MS to slow down it upgrade and end-of-life schedule, because it costs them a fortune, and Microsoft haven't been listening, because that's how they make their money. EU businesses would LOVE something like that.
MS does not sell directly, and any attempt by MS to prevent their distributors to sell to certain people would almost 100% be yet another anti-trust violation, and I doubt the EU would be particularly lenient in that case.
Besides you can fine anyone anywhere, the only question is enforcement. Now, if Microsoft doesn't pay up you can bet that Microsofts sales offices across Europe would be forcibly dissolved and their assets seized, and/or payments from Microsoft distributors and OEM's in Europe would be seized.
Microsoft might not have much of a presence here, but they do make a lot of money here, and it would not be hard for the EU to confiscate money intended for Microsoft if the don't pay up.
No. They shouldn't be provided with a media player forced on them my MS. The problem is not that MS is providing a media player, but that they are providing a mediaplayer tied into their OS without giving people, or OEM's and distributors, the option of getting Windows without it, or with alternative players.
By doing that they are making it significantly harder for the competition to stay viable, thereby removing consumer choice.
Considering that it's the X.Org foundation that is maintaining the X11 standard, the compatibility is a given - their X11 implementation IS the reference implementation of X11.
What Linus apparently meant by estoppel is simple: Linus has publicly stated his view on derivative works etc. and the Linux kernel, and referenced the license. More specifically he has attached a short notice in the same file as the license itself. People have contributed to Linux on this basis.
Now, if Linus turned around and tried to sue for copyright infringement because someone had relied on his statements regarding his intent with regards to choice of license, they would use estoppel as an argument in court: Linus can't sue someone for violating his rights when it is well documented that he has repeatedly made representations as to what rights he intended to secure by placing Linux under GPL.
If not, Linus could have have issued Linux under a license that just says "all rights reserved, no copying and distribution allowed" and go around and say "I don't _really_ mean that, as long as you abide by the GPL" and then start suing people once they start trusting him and distribute the software despite the license.
Since Linus has made his view on derivative works clear in the COPYING file, and it's well documented, a lawyer might decide that that is more than sufficient for you to rely on despite not being part of the license itself.
Is having breathable air of zero value to you? It costs nothing, so surely it must be, and you would have no objection if I removed all air surrounding you?
Ok, so perhaps you mean price == monetary value.
So does that mean that if I mistake a piece of glass for a diamond and offer it to you at $1, that the value is $1?
Of course not. The price is OFTEN, but not always the perceived value of the one setting the price. It is OFTEN the case that the value is higher than the price for one party, which is why they want to buy something at that price, or that the value is lower than the price for another party, which is why they might want to sell something at that price.
The value of the object to the seller when a transaction has been carried out could be said to be the same as the price, but that wasn't necessarily the case before a sale was certain.
Similarly, something offered for free often has value. If my alternative is buying a commercial OS, or installing Linux, then all else being equal the monetary value of having access to Linux for me is at least equal to the savings I make by not having to buy something else.
In this specific case, the "value" to me of having access to the firmware source may be significant. It might enable me to make customisations for which I might otherwise have to license SDK's and/or pay the manufacturer to make at high cost, and which could save me significant amounts of money.
Now, the value of the object code is less likely to be high, unless I can reuse it somewhere else, but even that isn't impossible. The manufacturer could have gone out of business so I have nowhere to get the latest driver versions for my older products except by buying a card with the latest driver and extracting it. In that case, buying a card just for the driver might save me money by allowing me to upgrade drivers on multiple cards I have, and so the value of the firmware could still very well be significant even though the price of obtaining it was just the price of the card.
Even disregarding all of this, if you do purchase the card, you do not "get the driver for free". It cost the manufacturer money to adapt the driver and place it on the card, and at least part of the value of the hardware derives from the availability of the driver. The price isn't zero - the price is part of the price of the card.
You are making the flawed assumption that all developers give a shit about having users except for themselves. Many developers write code because they want to get something done FOR THEMSELVES. They then decide to share the code because it might be of use to someone, and because they might get something back. It's up to them to decide what they want in return. For some, getting any modifications back is valuable because it might be useful for them in the future.
In any case, they wrote the code, they get to set the priorities. If they don't care about people who use their code, that is their right. If they think it's more important for them that people release their modifications and play by the rules they set, then that is their right. You, as a user, have no other rights than what they granted you with the license.
Sure, you can whine all you want that you aren't happy that the developers want to uphold the license THEY chose for a product THEY wrote, but it doesn't change the fact that if the developers purpose with releasing the software isn't to serve your need they are unlikely to care.
You seem to live under the delusion that being a "user" makes you inherently valuable. Being a user makes you valuable to a developer only to the extent the developers goal is to build a large userbase, or to the extent you provide useful feedback (depending on the developers definition of whats useful to him/her). For many projects that makes users valuable. Many projects DO want to reach out to as many as possible. But for many, users that are not also developers and contributors have little or no value.
You bring up being "user friendly" implying that "user friendly" means "usable to people that aren't developers" while people that aren't developers might not be part of the developers wanted user base. Do you complain that your mom find "vi" too difficult? Do I complain that I find "vi" too difficult? Well, perhaps sometimes, but mostly I just use something else.
IF it is a genuine loophole it is rarely noticed because it would likely be hard to use. Either company X needs to be VERY careful about who they sell anything to, or they'd need to control company Y.
If I as Evil Open Source Zealot manage to purchase anything from them directly and demand the source, they'd violated the GPL if they don't sell. Alternatively I could convince company Y (possibly with money, or the threat of a boycott) they'd benefit from demanding the source from company X and passing it on.
If company X restricts it sales to a very small number of distributors that excerts such control over that it could prevent them from passing on the source, chances are it could be successfully argued that company Y is acting on company X' behalf in the same way that a printers is acting on a book publishers behalf when copying a book for which the printers doesn't have a license, and that company X is still liable for ensuring access is given to the source as they are the "real" distributor.
I'm not a lawyer, but I think that even if there turned out to be a potential loophole here, there would be so many ways of preventing it from ever becoming an issue that for all practical purposes the issue is moot.
No. You are missing the point. The first sale doctrine applies to outright sales. Selling a book is not subject to copyright law because what is being sold is the book - the physical item. The fact that a copyrighted work is printed on the pages of the book is not important, as long as the act of copying, and distributing the copy made was done under license from the copyright holder.
Subsequent owners does not need a license from the copyright holder to dispose of their legally purchased physical item. They DO need a license from the copyright holder if they wish to copy the copyrighted work, or do anything else which would be actionable under copyright law.
Now, it might be possible to successfully argue that it would be unreasonable to attach distribution limitations for a physical device based on the grant of rights attached to a copyrighted work that make up just a component of the device itself - I don't know - I'm not a lawyer.
However it is clear that subsequent owners of something that includes a work IS subject to copyright law. The only question here is whether you have a point regarding the specific case of a device where the distribution of the software is a minor side point.
Otherwise ANY license or grant of rights could be side stepped neatly by anyone authorised to distribute the software by selling CD's or floppy disks that just "happen" to include the software, and claim that the distribution of the software was incidental to the main purpose of the sale, and through your creative interpretation of the first sale doctrine these purchasers would be free of any obligations with regards to the copyrighted work.
You have raised an interesting issue regarding the what the legal situation would be in the case of mere resale of a physical device incorporating GPL'd software where the distributor have received the source under clause 3a of the GPL but does not offer to pass it on.
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See, to us mere mortals that might have helped if the data structures/code was actually readable to us. It doesn't help me to have all that information available when it's in a format that would make me want to go postal.
I categorically REFUSE to use a language that looks like somebody barfed up a dinner sized portion of parenthesises all over the screen, no matter how many paradigms's it supports in an "easier-to-learn/easier-to-read" way... I get a headache just from looking at scheme and lisp code, and I suspect I'm not the only one.
That is where I got interested, and started laughing... But then I'm a Python hater to start with...
As long as the Samba people are careful to document the development process of any new features they would be in the clear.
First of all, you can't patent API's. Secondly the way CIFS works has been open and well documented way too long for MS to be able to patent it anywhere (typically the requirement is that a patent must be filed no later than a year after the publication of an invention).
How is "pracising unfair business practices" that have resulted in anti-trust convictions because they have illegally overcharged people for billions better than being a common thief? If it's slander against anyone to call Microsoft thieves, it would be against thieves, not Microsoft.
The TV manufacturer then gets a judgement saying they need to offer to sell their TV's to distributors without the remote if they want to, and may have to deduct the cost of the remote ($3 in your example). The consumers gets the choice of buying the TV with or without the original remote, and possibly bundled with the universal remote from the other company.
The consumer gets choice, and the TV manufacturer is unable to force it's remotes on everybody in the hope of bankrupting the universal remote manufacturer so that they can enter the universal remote market without competition.
That's my take as well. In addition, they will benefit from having more Microsoft alternatives available even if they are closed source, as any additional implementation means added pressure for Microsoft to stick to the specs (or anyone depending on the API documentation they've paid for will go whining to the court complaining that Microsoft are violating the judgement), and more software to test Samba and other open source projects against.
However that only means that bootstrapping a colony on a new planet will be extraordinarily expensive with our current technology, not that it isn't doable.
And speculative engineers everywhere are going far beyond doodling designs on napkins - they are spending a lot of time DESIGNING solutions to these problems.
Uhm. It wouldn't have been hard to find someone to debate heatedly with. In Norway, Life of Brian was initially banned from cinemas under a rarely used paragraphy in Norwegian law banning blasphemy. I believe it was the last time the paragraph (which still stands, btw.) has been used.
Of course IBM didn't "release a machine based on open specifications and parts with a straight face". At first they fought tooth and nail to keep control over the PC market and keep clone makers out of it. It was first AFTER the clones were already available, thanks to massive amounts of reverse engineering, that IBM started seeing the light. Remember the PS/2? IBM's attempt to regain control of the PC market by shutting competitors out. Unfortunately for IBM, customers preferred choice.
Fast non-volatile RAM has been "well under way and within reach in the next several years" for decades... But even then you would sometimes want to reboot to reinitialize everything from scratch, for instance after a full OS upgrade.
It would also make them easily censored by governments, which they won't like.
That's why the last time this came up the result was ".kids.us" - even within the US it will be hard enough to find a consensus of what is acceptable contents for children.
Before De Beers, the diamond was considered an inferior gemstone, not particularly attractive, and certainly not something people would generally consider for an engagement ring. De Beers built the "tradition" of the diamon engagement ring from scratch, manipulating the image of various sized stones various ways to optimize their sales channel, as well as using a lot of complex processes including buy backs and sales through dedicated dealers to create the impression of a high valued product.
Try selling a diamond ring back to a jeweller, and see what price they offer - the original jeweller may possibly be willing to give you a reasonable amount as an act of good faith, but in most cases you will find that the price you will be offered will be ridiculous, because the markups the jewellers get from De Beers and their distributors is insane. This is the reason most people see diamonds as precious: They are expensive in wholesale, because of De Beers. Not because they are rare, or supply is limited.
What the artificial diamond makers needs to do is recognize and capitalize on it: "Buy a diamond as pure as your love; flawless," making a big point of how with natural diamonds you are often buying an impure, flawed diamond, and also make a fuss over how the diamond trade has been used to fund many bloody wars.
And also make a big point of how diamonds aren't rare anymore, so you need "something special" for it to mean anything, not just any stone.
It would hit MS harder, because any work spent on making Linux suitable as a Windows replacement in Europe would be possible to move straight to the US as a cost cutting move by PC makers.
And that would harm EU customers how? Microsoft customers have been fighting hard to get MS to slow down it upgrade and end-of-life schedule, because it costs them a fortune, and Microsoft haven't been listening, because that's how they make their money. EU businesses would LOVE something like that.
Besides you can fine anyone anywhere, the only question is enforcement. Now, if Microsoft doesn't pay up you can bet that Microsofts sales offices across Europe would be forcibly dissolved and their assets seized, and/or payments from Microsoft distributors and OEM's in Europe would be seized.
Microsoft might not have much of a presence here, but they do make a lot of money here, and it would not be hard for the EU to confiscate money intended for Microsoft if the don't pay up.
By doing that they are making it significantly harder for the competition to stay viable, thereby removing consumer choice.
Considering that it's the X.Org foundation that is maintaining the X11 standard, the compatibility is a given - their X11 implementation IS the reference implementation of X11.
Now, if Linus turned around and tried to sue for copyright infringement because someone had relied on his statements regarding his intent with regards to choice of license, they would use estoppel as an argument in court: Linus can't sue someone for violating his rights when it is well documented that he has repeatedly made representations as to what rights he intended to secure by placing Linux under GPL.
If not, Linus could have have issued Linux under a license that just says "all rights reserved, no copying and distribution allowed" and go around and say "I don't _really_ mean that, as long as you abide by the GPL" and then start suing people once they start trusting him and distribute the software despite the license.
Since Linus has made his view on derivative works clear in the COPYING file, and it's well documented, a lawyer might decide that that is more than sufficient for you to rely on despite not being part of the license itself.
Ok, so perhaps you mean price == monetary value.
So does that mean that if I mistake a piece of glass for a diamond and offer it to you at $1, that the value is $1?
Of course not. The price is OFTEN, but not always the perceived value of the one setting the price. It is OFTEN the case that the value is higher than the price for one party, which is why they want to buy something at that price, or that the value is lower than the price for another party, which is why they might want to sell something at that price.
The value of the object to the seller when a transaction has been carried out could be said to be the same as the price, but that wasn't necessarily the case before a sale was certain.
Similarly, something offered for free often has value. If my alternative is buying a commercial OS, or installing Linux, then all else being equal the monetary value of having access to Linux for me is at least equal to the savings I make by not having to buy something else.
In this specific case, the "value" to me of having access to the firmware source may be significant. It might enable me to make customisations for which I might otherwise have to license SDK's and/or pay the manufacturer to make at high cost, and which could save me significant amounts of money.
Now, the value of the object code is less likely to be high, unless I can reuse it somewhere else, but even that isn't impossible. The manufacturer could have gone out of business so I have nowhere to get the latest driver versions for my older products except by buying a card with the latest driver and extracting it. In that case, buying a card just for the driver might save me money by allowing me to upgrade drivers on multiple cards I have, and so the value of the firmware could still very well be significant even though the price of obtaining it was just the price of the card.
Even disregarding all of this, if you do purchase the card, you do not "get the driver for free". It cost the manufacturer money to adapt the driver and place it on the card, and at least part of the value of the hardware derives from the availability of the driver. The price isn't zero - the price is part of the price of the card.
In any case, they wrote the code, they get to set the priorities. If they don't care about people who use their code, that is their right. If they think it's more important for them that people release their modifications and play by the rules they set, then that is their right. You, as a user, have no other rights than what they granted you with the license.
Sure, you can whine all you want that you aren't happy that the developers want to uphold the license THEY chose for a product THEY wrote, but it doesn't change the fact that if the developers purpose with releasing the software isn't to serve your need they are unlikely to care.
You seem to live under the delusion that being a "user" makes you inherently valuable. Being a user makes you valuable to a developer only to the extent the developers goal is to build a large userbase, or to the extent you provide useful feedback (depending on the developers definition of whats useful to him/her). For many projects that makes users valuable. Many projects DO want to reach out to as many as possible. But for many, users that are not also developers and contributors have little or no value.
You bring up being "user friendly" implying that "user friendly" means "usable to people that aren't developers" while people that aren't developers might not be part of the developers wanted user base. Do you complain that your mom find "vi" too difficult? Do I complain that I find "vi" too difficult? Well, perhaps sometimes, but mostly I just use something else.
If I as Evil Open Source Zealot manage to purchase anything from them directly and demand the source, they'd violated the GPL if they don't sell. Alternatively I could convince company Y (possibly with money, or the threat of a boycott) they'd benefit from demanding the source from company X and passing it on.
If company X restricts it sales to a very small number of distributors that excerts such control over that it could prevent them from passing on the source, chances are it could be successfully argued that company Y is acting on company X' behalf in the same way that a printers is acting on a book publishers behalf when copying a book for which the printers doesn't have a license, and that company X is still liable for ensuring access is given to the source as they are the "real" distributor.
I'm not a lawyer, but I think that even if there turned out to be a potential loophole here, there would be so many ways of preventing it from ever becoming an issue that for all practical purposes the issue is moot.
Subsequent owners does not need a license from the copyright holder to dispose of their legally purchased physical item. They DO need a license from the copyright holder if they wish to copy the copyrighted work, or do anything else which would be actionable under copyright law.
Now, it might be possible to successfully argue that it would be unreasonable to attach distribution limitations for a physical device based on the grant of rights attached to a copyrighted work that make up just a component of the device itself - I don't know - I'm not a lawyer.
However it is clear that subsequent owners of something that includes a work IS subject to copyright law. The only question here is whether you have a point regarding the specific case of a device where the distribution of the software is a minor side point.
Otherwise ANY license or grant of rights could be side stepped neatly by anyone authorised to distribute the software by selling CD's or floppy disks that just "happen" to include the software, and claim that the distribution of the software was incidental to the main purpose of the sale, and through your creative interpretation of the first sale doctrine these purchasers would be free of any obligations with regards to the copyrighted work.
You have raised an interesting issue regarding the what the legal situation would be in the case of mere resale of a physical device incorporating GPL'd software where the distributor have received the source under clause 3a of the GPL but does not offer to pass it on.